You can't buy a Wii U gamepad in stores!?

[Viper1]

Izo said:

theARTIST0017 said:

Other than that, the op doesn't make sense because it doesn't make sense to sell standalone gamepads for the one person on vgchartz who just "wants" to have it, (Nintendo would end up losing money)

What doesn't make sense is locking the functionality to a controller and making it unavailable outside of Nintendo themselves. As far as Nintendo losing money, that is their problem. They could have easily made the other controllers control the entire OS / play all the games. 

I'm sure no other person besides me wanted another gamepad or lost theirs.

No, but the rest contacted Nintendo for a replacement like it says to do in the manual and accompanying brochure material.